Caprio, Magaziner trade jabs for treasurer’s job in half-hour debate

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The two Democrats vying to become Rhode Island’s next state treasurer squared off Thursday night in a televised debate in which former general treasurer Frank Caprio pitted his record...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The two Democrats vying to become Rhode Island’s next state treasurer squared off Thursday night in a televised debate in which former general treasurer Frank Caprio pitted his record against opponent Seth Magaziner’s “thin résumé,’’ and Magaziner said the state has no hope “if we keep electing the same people… year after year.’’

“The choice is clear,’’ said Caprio, the former state senator who served one term as treasurer before waging an unsuccessful 2010 campaign for governor.

“You have my record, 20-plus years of public service,’’ he said, while in Magaziner, “we have someone… who has never had a full-time job here in Rhode Island and he is asking to be entrusted with an $8-billion pension fund.’’

In his own turn, Magaziner said: “Rhode Island’s in a tough spot right now… We can bounce back. We have what it takes to get this state back on track.

“But nothing is going to change if we keep electing the same people who have been up at the State House year after year, decade after decade. If we are serious that we want change in Rhode Island, then we need to have the guts to elect new leaders who will bring new energy and new ideas to the State House.’’

The two candidates faced off during a half-hour debate hosted by the Rhode Island League of Women Voters on RI PBS. The debate was moderated by Margie O’Brien, who acknowledged at the start that she worked for a time for Caprio’s 2010 campaign for governor.

And the televised debate played out a day after the publication of the results of a new Providence Journal-WPRI poll that showed 31-year-old Magaziner with a stunning 12-point lead over Caprio in their Democratic primary contest.

Among the findings of the poll conducted between Aug. 11-14: Magaziner leads with 42.7 percent of the potential primary vote, compared with 30.6 percent for Caprio. Another 24.3 percent of voters are still undecided on who might get their vote to run the state retirement system and oversee investments in the state’s $8-billion-plus state and municipal pension fund.

The findings reflected a major shift since a May Journal-WPRI-12 poll, when Caprio led Magaziner, 29.2 percent to 11.3 percent, in what was then a three-way Democratic primary race.

During Thursday night’s debate, Caprio acknowledged that a state contract controversy that led his brother, former state representative David Caprio, to resign as state Democratic Party chairman this summer, was “troubling’’ to people, and that he had, as a result, become “the under dog’’ in the treasurer’s race.

Simply put: David Caprio won a state contract to run the concession stands at three state beaches after state Rep. Peter Palumbo, who had been notified that he had offered the state the best deal, withdrew from the bidding competition. (Caprio’s bid was the next best.)

David Caprio resigned as party chairman after WJAR-TV reported that state police were investigating the contract shuffle, including Caprio’s hiring of Palumbo to manage the concession stands.

Asked what he would say to voters who might think that “looks like an insider-deal cooked up by your brother and Peter Palumbo,’’ Frank Caprio said: “I am very glad that you asked that question.’’

“You know I had nothing to do with what went on with that contract, and it is being reviewed by the authorities and I have full faith in the authorities that they will do a complete review, and I wish my brother obviously the best. He is my brother and I love my brother.’’

“As far as how it looks to the outside, obviously, [it] is something that is troubling to people,’’ he said. “I am asking people to take another look at this race. I don’t blame them for over the last three weeks with the headlines… [asking] ‘is Frank Caprio someone we want to send back to the treasurer’s office?’ Well, I’m saying yes I am, and I would like you to really stack up my record against my opponent’s record.’’

In his own turn, Magaziner said he was proud that his own close-to-home political connection is bringing former President Clinton to Rhode Island next week on his behalf. His father, Ira Mazaziner, was Clinton’s health-care guru.

Both candidates said one of their first acts would be to replace First Southwest — a company the state is suing, in connection with the 38 Studios debacle — as the state’s financial adviser. Magaziner said the state nonetheless needs to pay the investors who purchased the $75 million in bonds that financed the doomed video-game venture, while Caprio insisted he could knock that number down.

They dickered over Magaziner’s role in winning “strong returns’’ for investors at the company where he formerly worked, Trillium Asset Management, with Caprio insisting that he didn’t have the license to personally handle the money, and Magaziner insisting that he was part of the group within the company that made the strategic decisions.

But both talked about bringing down the investment fees that Caprio said have gone up by more than $50 million since he left office, and said he would extricate the state from hedge funds as a start.

But panelist Ted Nesi of WPRI-TV put Caprio on the defensive by asking about a Wilshire finding that the state’s pension fund “has under-performed (for) five of the last seven years,’’ including all four years of his own administration.

Caprio said Rhode Island was in the “top half’’ of a “State Street index’’ that compared Rhode Island’s pension fund performance with that of pension funds of similar size for the three full fiscal years he was in the office.